Animation and visual presentation in multimedia provide the flexibility to exploit scientific knowledge and students' cognitive styles. The focus of this study is to report the use of two different visual control treatments (self-controlled vs. system-imposed) among students with different cognitive styles (Field Independent and Field Dependent). Eighth-grade students were tested to determine how they learned from different design approaches of instructional materials. The 2 (cognitive style) x 2 (treatment) ANCOVA, controlling for a covariate, prior physics scores, indicates a main significant effect with respect to visual control (p < 0.0005), but an insignificant effect with respect to cognitive style (p > 0.05). The effect of visual control treatment is significant among FD students (p < 0.05) but not FD students (p > 0.05).
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